Class Central, yet again, came across a 2U employee’s layoff post on LinkedIn. This is its sixth layoff (that we know of) since 2U acquired edX in 2021. The first one happened in 2022 for profitability’s sake. Since then, the company filed for bankruptcy (mostly due to the debt it took to acquire edX for $800M), took down its bootcamps, exited many university partnerships, and even got delisted from the stock market. The previous layoffs were framed as strategy shifts, realigning operations, o

Both Coursera and Udemy started 2025 with new CEOs. Greg Hart took over at Coursera in February. Hugo Sarrazin started at Udemy in March. Less than a month into the job, both CEOs were in conversations to sell their companies. On April 8, Hart and Sarrazin met for the first time at ASU+GSV. The rest, as they say, is history. In my 5,000-word analysis of Coursera’s acquisition of Udemy, I called the deal rushed. Two new CEOs, both less than a year into the job, merging two public companies. I w

Online education company 2U implements fifth round of layoffs since its disastrous $800 million acquisition of edX in 2021.

In 2027, Duolingo is shutting down Duolingo for Schools, its free classroom tool that helped teachers track student progress and assign lessons. Coursera did the same thing last year, ending free course audits. It seemed sudden, but the signs were there. Class Central tracked the Duolingo for Schools shutdown too. And this time, the signs were all across social media platforms. Why the Shutdown? Duolingo for Schools was launched in 2015. Within a week, more than 10,000 teachers and 25,000 stud